Refusing transitional time: Re-opening the unresolved truth and reconciliation commission cases and the future of memory in postapartheid South Africa

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dc.contributor.authorThomas, Kylieen
dc.contributor.funderKoninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappenen
dc.date.accessioned2023-10-02T08:33:17Z
dc.date.available2023-10-02T08:33:17Z
dc.date.issued2023-10-04en
dc.description.abstractThis chapter focuses on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and its aftermath, in particular, on the ongoing struggle to prosecute apartheid- era perpetrators who either did not testify before the Commission or who were not granted amnesty. Since 2003, when the final TRC report was released, none of the perpetrators responsible for gross violations of human rights committed during apartheid has been held to account. The unresolved cases of activists who were detained, tortured, and murdered by the Security Police have been systematically suppressed for political reasons. In 2017, as a result of campaigning by civil society organizations and family members of those who were killed, the inquest into the death of anti-apartheid activist, Ahmed Timol, was re-opened. The verdict in the 2017 inquest found that Timol, who allegedly committed suicide while held in police detention in 1971, was in fact tortured and murdered by the Security Police. The finding in this case not only opens the possibility for prosecutions in cases of gross violations of human rights, but provides a critical opportunity to recalibrate what I term ‘postapartheid transitional time.’ The re-opening of the unresolved TRC cases has the potential to radically shift how people think about what apartheid was, how it continues to affect the present, and how people experience and understand impunity and injustice.en
dc.description.sponsorshipKoninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW Academy Institutes Fund)en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationThomas, K. (2023) 'Refusing Transitional Time: Re-opening the Unresolved Truth and Reconciliation Commission Cases and the Future of Memory in Postapartheid South Africa', in Robbe, K. (ed.), Remembering transitions: local revisions and global crossings in culture and media, (22 pp.) Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2023, pp. 137-158. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110707793-006en
dc.identifier.doi10.1515/9783110707793-006en
dc.identifier.eissn9783110707793en
dc.identifier.endpage158en
dc.identifier.issn9783110707700en
dc.identifier.startpage137en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/15057
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherDe Gruyteren
dc.relation.ispartofRemembering Transitionsen
dc.rights© 2023 the author(s), published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/en
dc.subjectTruth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)en
dc.subjectSouth Africaen
dc.subjectApartheiden
dc.subjectPost-authoritarianen
dc.subjectTransitionen
dc.subjectCritical memory studiesen
dc.subjectCultural studiesen
dc.subjectMemoryen
dc.titleRefusing transitional time: Re-opening the unresolved truth and reconciliation commission cases and the future of memory in postapartheid South Africaen
dc.typeBook chapteren
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